Waterstones Surrenders to the Amazon Ebook Behemoth and Agrees to Stock Kindles

Waterstones is about to bet big on Kindle and undertake a huge shift in its business, announcing plans to sell both the Kindle hardware and Amazon's e-books across its chain of UK shops.

The idea is to keep the physical bookshop alive as a destination for browsing and poking around the shelving while looking for something of interest on a rainy Sunday afternoon, with Waterstones then able to sell you a Kindle and a digital version of the book right there and then should you prefer to leave the paper one behind and embrace the future.

James Daunt, the current exec director of Waterstones, claims he wants to find "The very best way" of letting Waterstones customers buy and consume their books digitally, with the launch ready for this Autumn, once the chain has managed to install Wi-Fi networks across all of its branches. [Waterstones]